336 TRAVELS IN 
two ranges of mountains. The figure that presented itself at 
the door might tru]}^ be said to represent a being of a differ- 
ent country from that which we had left behind. It was a 
tall old man, with a thin sallow visage, and a beard of dingy- 
black, which, extending to the eyes, where it met the straggling 
hair of the forehead, obscured the face like a vison Never 
was a finer figure for the inhabitant of a black tower or en- 
chanted castle, in the page of a romance. Not accustomed 
to receive strangers, he seemed, on our arrival, to be some- 
what agitated. In one corner of the chimney of his hovel, 
which consisted of one apartment, sat an old Hottentot wo- 
man, over whose head had passed at least a century of years. 
To her natural sallow complexion was superadded no small 
quantity of soot, so that she was at least as black as her 
bearded master. A female slave next made her appearance, 
of a piece with the two former. Tiie faggot presently crackled 
on the hearth ; a quarter of a sheep was laid on the coals to 
broil ; and the repast was speedily served up on the lid of an 
old chest, for want of a table, and covered with a remnant of 
the same piece of cloth worn as a petticoat by the female 
slave, which, it seemed not unlikely, had also once been em- 
ployed in the same sort of service. 
It turned out in conversation, that the old gentleman had 
long resided in this sequestered spot far removed from all 
societ}' ; without wife or child, relation or friend, or any hu- 
man being to converse with or confide in, except the old Hot- 
tentot and the slave, who were his only inmates, and a tribe 
of Hottentots living in straw huts without. With the ap- 
pearance of wretchedness and extreme poverty, he possessed 
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